


Succession

by StarlightCaptivator



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Mech Preg, Other, Sparklings, non-graphic birth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-21
Updated: 2016-05-21
Packaged: 2018-06-09 17:23:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6916480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarlightCaptivator/pseuds/StarlightCaptivator
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He justified his action by telling himself that the energon-soaked grounds of a gladiators' pit was no place to bring up a new-spark.  </p>
<p>Upon return, he pretended that his preferential treatment was based on potential seen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Succession

**Author's Note:**

> And! Here we have the first of the Megamom Au-A side, cleaned up and given it's own posting. This AU and it's B-Side counterpart pleases me greatly, I hope in this easier-to-consume format, it pleases you too. Horizontal rules indicate a substantial, if ambiguous passing of time.

 For a long time, he had no idea what could be happening to him.

Pain wasn't a factor, it was more a discomfort leading from his spark and down through the depths of his extra-armored chassis. 

Pain was the first time he had been assaulted so brutally in that tiny cell, the sheer sear of heavy, dirty armor being prised at the edges before laid back flat again to hide the damage. 

Pain was that same armor, later rent from his frame during a particularly bad battle. 

This... was just strange.

Unpleasant, but strange. 

He uploaded a strong sedative patch and settled onto his side to get some well-deserved recharge.

 

When the gladiator awoke again, his berth was swamped in a sticky puddle of his own fluids. A deep ache was situated in his midsection all the way down to his hips.

 He began to sit up with something akin to alarm making his spark beat wildly, but razor honed instincts froze him in place as he propped himself partway up.

  _Something_ was on the berth with him. Panic rising, he raised his fist up, but froze again as two tiny red optics went online to blearily regard him.

 The Thing made a soft little cooing noise before snuggling closer and falling into a light recharge. He barely avoided an ugly glitch and when he recovered from that close call, slowly he reached to take hold of the tiny interloper. It was so _small_ , small enough to be held easily in one servo, securely in two. 

 It took him a full three breems to realize he was looking at a sparkling.

 A sparkling that for all appearances seemed to have come out of him.

He stared at the creature in confusion. How could he have a sparkling of all things? From what he understood, one had to want a sparkling to receive one. In the hazy light of the oncoming Kaonian morning, the gladiator gaped at his unexpected creation.

It was the finials that caught his optics first.

 They reminded him in a sudden and violent manner of his own sensor panels, tucked safely away under his helmet. They framed the tiny soft faceplate and the thick optic ridges that nearly matched his coloring now, but tended more towards mining days gone by. Reds and yellows and whites also appeared on the tiny soft frame that was obviously headed for a future of speed.

The gladiator's processor screeched to a halt once more, and his tanks gave a nauseous lurch. He replayed a suddenly resurfaced memory of an over arduous sponsor from a long time ago - long enough that he hadn't cared to remember his name. He was a smaller racing frame, some celebrity in white and yellow who got his jollies off from the thrill of dangerous races and dangerous games.

And having his way with dangerous mecha. 

 The gladiator had allowed the racer to have his way for the extra credits, but he had never expected such an outcome from the encounter.

 There was obviously a gap in his education that desperately needed filling. 

 

He would have to fill it in the next few solar cycles, on his way to Polyhex. There wasn't any way this bitlet would be safe around him, around here, not with the inevitable to come.

Luckily for him, sparklings were public knowledge if one knew where to look for the information. The first section he read from the data slug he pilfered was on care, and he carefully quashed the feeling of guilt that sprang up when the pad told him in no uncertain terms that he was taking care of his creation wrong. He pulled over right away into a more secluded area to allow the sparkling to feed from a small energon line in his wrist.

 The little one greedily took in all the fuel he could before falling back into a quiet recharge. The gladiator reconnected his fuel line before resuming his journey. This just illustrated in no uncertain terms why the tiny mech would be better off without him as a creator. The thought made his spark constrict painfully in his chest. 

Reading the data from the beginning had the gladiator burning from embarrassment at his obvious lack of formal education. Of course unprotected interfacing made sparklings - and he had just given it all away without protection for a few extra measly credits.

The dataslug gave him all the information he needed to know about preventing something like this from happening again.

 He slipped through Polyhex under the cover of night, and used the next solar cycle to scope out his target - the sooner that he could get this over with, the better.

He couldn't get attached… more attached.

This was all for the best.

During the next night cycle he withdrew two things from his subspace - a mesh blanket and a windbreak. He'd be damned if he would let his creation go offline after coming so far. He wrapped the sparkling securely in the mesh, and when the early hours of the morning began to filter the star's rays through Cybertron's atmosphere, the gladiator left his tiny creation protected by the flimsy windbreak on the front step of a home for lost sparks that bore the name of Primus.

He ruthlessly quashed any regret that could well up as best he could as he sped his way back to Kaon.

* * *

 

It was vorns later when he saw him again.

He wasn't just some gladiator starting to get under the senate's plating anymore.

He was Megatron the leader of the Decepticons, and Kaon belonged to him.

Soon, so would all of Cybertron.

It was a recruitment rally where his sparkling appeared to him.

He had heard of a heavier speedster proving himself among the back ways, and being especially proficient with a blaster. He had seen pictures, and his spark lept in a painful way when he laid optics on the young mech. He watched a holovid of a target practice, and felt some sort of guilty pride at seeing his creation's skill. The vid file was labeled 'Drift at target practice.'

Drift.

It wasn't the designation he would have picked for his creation, but it wasn't terrible. He supposed he didn't have the right to contest something as simple as a name for a sparkling he didn't even raise.

When he showed up at the rally, Megatron was sure Primus was giving him some sort of second chance. The young mech looked upon him like all the others did - with some wonder and fear... and vast amounts of respect.

He called his creation forwards, and gave him a new designation. He would keep him close by from now on. Deadlock may not know that he was his creator, but it wasn't a creator's role that Megatron would be taking on.

In a way, they were both reborn that day.

 

* * *

 

Turmoil reported that Deadlock had gone AWOL after a sabotage attempt aboard his warship. He didn't trust Turmoil's word in anything but battle, so he ordered Soundwave to bring in Lockdown. He wouldn't be letting his creation... no, one of his most valuable and vicious lieutenants disappear again if he could help it. 

 

* * *

 

Rung was the first person - and only mechanism so far - that he told. He didn't give designations or the time frame that it occurred, but he admitted the fact that he had created once before. He told him that he was proud of where his creation was now, and that he had kept an audial to the ground for him when he learned that his creation was in his adult frame.

Rung asked if his creation knew him at all.

Megatron answered that his creation knew who he was, but didn't know they were related, _how_ they were related.

He was sure that gave Rung much to think about.

His surety went right out the airlock when Rung asked if his creation was an Autobot, a Decepticon or a Neutral. The session was nearly over, and so Megatron took advantage of that, and answered "Yes."

 

* * *

 

When Ratchet showed up again with Drift in tow, Megatron was sure to avoid the speedster like the mech was inflicted with the rust plague outside of his duties. He wasn't sure how he would deal with Drift in a capacity beyond professional with the history between them - both professional and personal.

That, and it hurt too much to see him again. Just the sight of white finials or dorsal plating sent him heading for the hills like some sort of scared Aut-... like some sort of weakling. 

The anxiety was too much, he'd have to face him on his own time. 

 

Much to his horror, Rodimus cornered him after this went on for a while. He must have telegraphed too much, gotten lax in the control of his expression one too many times. 

"It's the Deadlock thing, isn't it?" Rodimus stated, after having tricked poor Rung out of his office and locked the two of them in.

"Excuse me?" Megatron replied darkly, rising from the berth kept there. Standing his full height out of his loud-mouth co-captain didn't cow the mech. 

"With Drift. You're ignoring him because he defected from _your side_ , aren't you?"

Megatron's processor halted for a microklik. He knew what he should say, but instead he ended up blurting out "I'm not avoiding him!" in a fit of impulse. 

Smooth.

Rodimus stomped up to him and from what Megatron could tell, he was trying to compensate their height differences with his servos on his hips and his chin upraised. "That is red hot pitslag, and you know that." Rodimus bit out in turn, moving to poke his finger at the Autobot symbol on Megatron's chest.

As if the little flame-colored simpleton had any idea what _pitslag_ really was. 

Megatron gritted his dentae and clenched his fists at his sides, willing himself not to pick the smaller bot up by the neck and forcibly stuff him through Rung's window. He calmed himself back down as the sound of Ultra Magnus giving warnings about a door breaking to come.

"You overstep your bounds, Rodimus." Megatron said, voice low. "Any issue I may have is only my business, and it's within your best interests to _let it lie_."

It was as the door was breaking down that Rodimus said something very lewd and Megatron's fist found Rodimus' olfactory sensors.

 

 A joor later,  Rodimus and Megatron were sat at the opposite sides of Ultra Magnus' office. Ratchet tended to Rodimus' face and the dents on his chest, while the erstwhile tyrant sat with his arms over his chestplate and glared a burning hole in the wall. Rung was also present, partly by Megatron's request and partly by the fact that his office was the 'crime scene'.

 "Whirl doesn't phase you, but one sentence from Rodimus and suddenly you're committing assault? If you want your side to be heard, you need to speak to us, Megatron." Ultra Magnus said, looking entirely too tired for this slag.

 He remained silent for a full breem before biting his lip components and mumbling something that even the audials of a cyberhound wouldn't be able to pick up. Even mumbling, he had an obviously hard time admitting it; just recently having admitted it to his therapist.

 "....Pardon?" Ultra Magnus asked, unable to hear.

 "I said," Megatron bit out harshly. "He implied that I would interface. With. MY. **CREATION!** " Each word found more and more volume, until he was on his pedes again, with his fists balled up.

Rodimus gaped at him, optics blown bright in disbelief. Megatron sneered at him, sharp dentae bared. "That's right! And now you know!And if I ever hear you imply such a thing again, I will do **more** than just rearrange your face!" He froze in place, and took a couple of deep vent cycles when Rung put his servo on his arm.

He continued to glare down at Rodimus. "I will not be waylaid and questioned for asinine interactions on my own ship. We're done here." With that, he stalked from the office, leaving one horrified bot, and three very confused ones in his wake.

Rodimus slowly turned to look at Ratchet, he chose his words slowly. "I need you to do a CNA evaluation to be done right away."

 

Drift... did not take the news well. He took it as a joke at first, until Rodimus brought him in to watch the procedure be re-done directly after a small portion of his energon was drawn. When Megatron's CNA popped up as being half the contributor for his own, Drift experienced a nasty crash, and passed out right in the lab.

 When he came back online, Rodimus was sitting beside him, and Ratchet was monitoring his vitals. He smiled wryly. "Tell me it was a recharge flux," he croaked. "...Who else knows?"

 "Ultra Magnus, Ratchet and Rung." Rodimus answered in clearly hesitant tones. "No else has to unless you want them to."

 Drift let out a long vent and stared up at the ceiling. "Well, this raises some questions."

 Rodimus snorted. "I'll say."

 He raised a servo just a tad, and Ratchet took it as Drift looked his way. "And how about you? How does it feel to know you've been in berth with a Decepticon _Prince_?" Sarcasm saturated the self-administered title, aided by the wryness of his tone.

Ratchet looked thoughtful for a moment. 

 "Perhaps we've uncovered the secret to your stamina?" He said teasingly, and both Drift and Rodimus grimaced and groaned.

 "Eugh, that was an image I did not need."

 

A few solar cycles later during his off duty time, Megatron received a ping at his habsuite door. He came to it and entered the open command with no little amount of trepidation. 

He wasn't surprised to see Drift standing there. They regarded each other for a few kliks with tired resignation on one end, and boundless wariness on the other before Drift spoke.

"...Can we talk?" He asked, making optic contact with the ex-warlord.

After a moment's thought, Megatron stepped back and aside to allow him in.

He motioned to the seating inside his modest habsuite and Drift soon found himself sitting across from the larger mech and woefully under prepared for this... skirmish. He had expected more to be turned away.

"Ssooo..." he started, trying to keep twitchy servos under wraps. "You're my creator?" He didn't really need to ask, knowing already, but he was grasping at straws already for conversation.

"One of them, yes." Megatron answered cautiously, just as awkward as Drift. Must run in the family. "Your carrier."

Drift's gaze snapped back to the big mech, someone he had once considered an inspiraton, an addictive leader. _Carrier_ was just too far fetched, too hard to imagine.  "...ah... why did you keep me...? I-I mean, why didn't you terminate me when you found out I was there?" 

Megatron wouldn't meet his optics. "...I only learned about you at emergence. Thick armor like mine does not show the _physical_ end of a carry cycle so much." He answered, deciding the frank answer would be the more constructive one. "I had you during my gladiator days and…" Megatron, the ever-eloquent orator that he was, appeared to hesitate, grasped for the words for a moment.  "... I didn't want that life for you. I didn't want you to come up in those dangerous circumstances, so I took you to Polyhex. In the early days of the revolution, and when Kaon fell… you would have been targeted right away if I had kept you with me."

He glanced the speedster's way for a quick moment, but kept talking when his optics fell away again. "I've known you were mine from the time I learned about your achievements with a blaster in Rodion."

Drift silently took in the information in silence. He stared at his pedes while things came together. Flashes and sensation from his life suddenly made a lot more sense, especially when he had officially joined the decepticons. "...So the attention, the designation, Lockdown?"

Megatron nodded and huffed a soft sigh, not looking up. "Because you are my creation. I knew I shouldn't show preferential treatment but... I found myself more attached than I meant to be, even then."

The pair sat in silence for a breem before Drift spoke up.

"....I don't think I can think of you as a creator... not quite yet at least. I'm willing to learn about you though. Primus gave us both a second chance, after all." The last part was said in a wry manner, and it made Megatron crack a smile.

"I'd like that, Drift."

**Author's Note:**

> This came out originally in the frenzy that is a Nanowrimo writing session, and like things sprung from there are wont to do, it quickly blew out of control. It's very close to my heart though. Thanks for reading! :,D


End file.
